Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Bishop’s next letter to Grace is dated 9 April 1958. Since
the March epistle, Bishop had heard from Grace, who was back in Nova Scotia. She had
also heard from Marjorie Stevens about Grace’s visit to Key West. Catching up with these
correspondences was the first order of business.

Even though Grace was “home” from her gallivanting, Bishop
wasn’t exactly sure if that meant Great
Village or Dartmouth. Grace’s daughter Phyllis
Sutherland and her family lived in the latter place and Grace often spent time
with them. Even though Grace had been gallivanting, she always took time to
write and she had remembered Bishop’s birthday (8 February): “Your birthday
card to me arrived about a week ago!” One can observe that mails are not much
faster these days. The slowness of this natal day greeting was due to it being
“overweight so it had come by boat.” Bishop mentioned “the yellow roses,” but
didn’t linger on this birthday greeting, rather she jumped right into “a long
letter from Marjorie,” in which she learned more about Grace, Mabel and Hazel’s
visit to Key West. Marjorie had penned the letter “the day after your visit
there.”

Bishop passed on Marjorie’s response: “She was sorry she
couldn’t do more for you … but loved seeing you.” Grace clearly had been
stylishly turned out, as Marjorie “described your outfit in great detail, said
you looked very chic and had a good haircut.” Bishop envied Grace’s good
hair, confessing she cut her own hair when not in Rio
and declared that at “the moment I look like a bundle of steel-wool.”

As for Grace’s niece Hazel (Mabel’s daughter), she was very
familiar with Key West, having lived in Florida for decades.
Bishop said that Marjorie felt Mabel seemed “rather indifferent to it all,” in
contrast to Grace who “took in everything.” With a knowing, behind the hand
whisper in her words, Bishop wondered, “maybe she was having the sulks that
day?”

Bishop herself had been in Key West the previous year, a visit after a
long absence. For her, Key West
was “completely ruined.”Some of the
“back streets” retained their charm, but the main street was “just one long bar
and stinks of beer.” Not a slogan for a tourist brochure! Marjorie must has
shown Grace the house Bishop and Louise Crane had owned in the 1930s: “How did
you like” it? Bishop asked. It had changed, too, from the time Bishop lived
there in the 1930s. At that time “there were not buildings across the street
just fields.” Because “the woman who has it now has never pruned a single bush
in 15 years,” Bishop was shocked by how overgrown it was. Even with this
change, Bishop held some affection for the building itself, “a pretty house, as
far as lines go.”

(EB’s house in Key
West, 2011.

I have forgotten who sent me this photo and
the ones below.)

Eager to learn Grace’s impressions of the place, Bishop
urged her aunt to write, and also to “tell her how Marjorie seemed.” Bishop’s
visit the previous year had been pleasant, with her “well and cheerful” friend.
But Bishop knew her Marjorie “works much too hard — Saturdays & Sunday’s
usually, too.” Living on her own, with a house to maintain and a modest income,
Marjorie had not yet been able to “furnish her house” fully, partly because she
had renovated. But Bishop was impressed by how much her old friend had
accomplished. She worried, however, that Marjorie was “terribly lonely there,
poor dear.” To cheer her up, Bishop was going to try to send her “some
orchids.” Bishop had described the “orchid-growers for neighbours” in
Samambaia, and two of the big nurseries had “export licenses.” Alas, it is not
known if Marjorie ever got her Brazilian orchids.

(EB’s house in Key
West. Still overgrown!)

Even with all the struggles and challenges, Bishop admired
how her old friend “keeps going and keeps up her ‘standards’.”

After all this catching up, Bishop concluded wistfully with,
“Well, I wish you could have come a few thousand miles further south, too.”

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John Barnstead

I retired in 2014 after forty years of teaching Russian language and literature. I'm a past president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Sandra Barry

I am a poet, independent scholar, freelance editor, and secretary of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Suzie LeBlanc

I am a professional singer who recently has become a great admirer of Elizabeth Bishop's writing. I am also fond of walking and nature. I became involved with the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary because I wanted to have her poems set to music so that I could sing them.